Chapter 3

The sound of the locket hitting the marble floor was small, but it echoed in Maya's ears like a gunshot.

The clasp, old and delicate, snapped.

The locket lay open, its two halves askew.

"Oh, clumsy me!" Tori exclaimed, her voice a breathy apology.

But her eyes, when they met Maya's for a fleeting second, held a spark of malice.

Maya didn't think. She moved.

She pushed past Tori, dropping to her knees beside the broken pieces.

Her fingers trembled as she reached for them.

This wasn't just a locket.

It was a piece of her past, a symbol of a love she thought was real.

A love that now lay shattered at her feet.

"Maya! What do you think you're doing? Get up!"

Alex's voice was harsh, laced with anger and embarrassment.

He pulled her arm, trying to make her stand.

Tori was already by his side, her hand on his other arm, looking distressed.

"Alex, darling, it's alright. It was an accident."

"It was mine," Maya whispered, her voice choked.

She looked up at Alex, her eyes pleading.

"You gave it to me. You said... you said it was special. You saved for months."

A flicker of something crossed Alex's face. Confusion? A distant memory?

It was gone in an instant.

He frowned. "I don't recall. It's just an old piece of silver, Maya. Don't make a scene."

He gently disengaged Tori's hand and pulled Maya to her feet.

"Tori, are you alright?" he asked, his voice softening as he turned to the other woman.

He dismissed the broken locket, dismissed Maya's pain, with a casual wave of his hand.

He picked up the two pieces from the floor, his expression unreadable.

Then, he tucked them into his pocket.

"Let's go," he said, his arm around Tori's shoulders, guiding her away.

Tori glanced back at Maya, a small, triumphant smile playing on her lips.

Maya was left standing alone, the imprint of the cold marble still on her knees.

Her hands were empty.

The skin on her palms burned where she had scraped them, trying to gather the pieces.

It was a dull ache compared to the one in her chest.

She walked home.

The doorman at the penthouse offered to call her a cab, but she shook her head.

It started to rain, a cold, miserable drizzle.

The city lights blurred through her tears.

Her shoes, expensive and impractical, pinched her feet.

She remembered another rainy night, long ago in Brooklyn.

Her cheap umbrella had turned inside out, and she was soaked to the bone.

Alex, the Brooklyn Alex, had found her huddled in a doorway.

He'd taken off his own worn jacket, wrapped it around her, and piggybacked her the rest of the way home, his laughter warm against the cold rain.

He'd made her hot tea and rubbed her cold feet until they were warm.

That Alex, the one who cared, the one who cherished her, was gone.

He had died the day Alexander Sterling III remembered his name.

The man who wore his face now was a stranger, a cruel, indifferent stranger.

She finally allowed herself to cry, the sobs wracking her body, lost in the sound of the rain and the city.

She was toweling her hair dry when Alex came into the penthouse.

He looked at her, his expression unreadable.

"We're going to the Hamptons for the weekend. Mother expects us."

It was a command, not an invitation.

A PR move, she guessed. To show he wasn't ashamed of her, even though his every action screamed otherwise.

Or perhaps, just another way to control her, to keep her tethered to his world.